GABRIEL PLATTES, who (Harte says) "had a bold, adventurous cast of mind." The author of "Herefordshire Orchards," calls him "a singular honest man." Mr. Weston says, "This author may be considered as an original genius in husbandry. This ingenious writer, whose labours were productive of plenty and riches to others, was so destitute of the common necessaries of life, as to perish with hunger and misery. He was found dead in the streets, without a shirt to cover him, to the eternal disgrace of the government he lived under. He bequeathed his papers to S. Hartlib, whom a contemporary author addresses in this manner: 'none (but yourself, who wants not an enlarged heart, but a fuller hand to supply the world's defect,) being found, with some few others, to administer any relief to a man of so great merit.' Another friend of Hartlib's, gives Plattes the following character: 'certainly that man had as excellent a genius in agriculture, as any that ever lived in this nation before him, and was the most faithful seeker of his ungrateful country's good. I never think of the great judgement, pure zeal, and faithful intentions of that man, and withal of his strange sufferings, and manner of death, but am struck with amazement, that such a man should be suffered to fall down dead in the streets for want of food, whose studies tended in no less than providing and preserving food for whole nations, and that with as much skill and industry, so without pride or arrogance towards God or man.'--A list of his many works appears in Watts's Bibl. Brit. and also in Weston's intelligent Catalogue; and much information is given of Plattes in vol. 2 of the Censura Litteraria. Two of his works appear to be, 1. Treatise of Husbandry; 1633, 4to. 2. Discourse of Infinite Treasure, hidden since the World's beginning, in the way of Husbandry; 1632, 1653, 1656, 4to.[29] WILLIAM LAWSON published in 1597, A New Orchard and Garden, in 4to. Other editions, in 4to., in 1623, and 1626. His singular assertions are treated with great candor by the author of _Herefordshire Orchards_,--"for I thought I found many signs of honesty and integrity in the man, a sound, clear, natural wit." SIMON HARWARD published in 1597, a Treatise on the Art of propagating Vegetables; and annexed it to Lawson's New Orchard and Garden, THOMAS JOHNSON, the learned editor of the enlarged and valuable edition of Gerarde. Wood calls him "the best herbalist of his time." Mr. Weston, in his Catalogue, relates with great pleasure, the sanguine and interesting tours which Mr. Johnson, and some friends, made in various counties, to examine the native botanical beauties of his own country.